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ARRL VHF/UHF Contesting and Awards Survey

NEWINGTON, CT, October 7, 2002 -- With a higher proportion of VHF-only licensees than ever before, one might expect that VHF/UHF contesting would be experiencing a surge in popularity. To the contrary, while the total QSOs being made in the multi-band contests seems steady, the number of logs - and thus the number of serious participants - has fallen off considerably since 1996. This has led the ARRL to ask you for your thoughts on why this might be happening and how to best address and reverse the trend. We'd also like to hear from you about the ARRL VHF/UHF awards program in general.

The survey is the result of a request from the ARRL Board to look into ways to increase participation. It is being sent to a random sample of regular top-scorers and average participants, regardless of their score, plus clubs that regularly participate in VHF/UHF club competitions. Our interest is in gathering information we can use to improve the participation and quality of both the various ARRL VHF/UHF contests and the ARRL VHF/UHF awards programs. The detail and quality of information in your answers is especially important to us.

The Survey

The survey is organized into several areas of inquiry. The first group deals exclusively with contesting:

• Existing contests - how can their formats, rules, or reporting be improved such that activity and log submissions are increased? This survey refers to the following ARRL sponsored contests: January VHF Sweepstakes, June & September VHF QSO Parties, August UHF Contest, 10 GHz and Up competition, and the Oct/Nov EME Contest
  

• New contest formats - are there new formats that would be attractive to the existing contest community?
  

• New participants - what improvements or additions to VHF/UHF contesting would attract more operators to the sport? How can these operators be reached?
  

A second area of interest is the ARRL VHF/UHF awards program and increasing the level of interest and participation. The existing awards such as VUCC, WAS, and DXCC, are derivatives of the HF awards program. There is some concern that these awards either have too high an initial qualification level or may be missing some interests of VHF/UHF operators. There are two groups of questions:

• Existing awards - how can their rules or categories might be improved so that more activity is encouraged?

• New awards - are there new award programs that would be attractive to VHF/UHF operators?

Responding

Each topic has a series of questions related to either VHF/UHF contesting or awards. Please select the answer that best matches your position or situation. Please feel free to extend your remarks (use additional pages if necessary). Your detailed comments are very important.

The survey is downloadable as an Adobe Acrobat file on the web (31,090 bytes, PDF file). It should be completed and returned by regular mail to: VHF/UHF Survey, attn: Wayne Mills, N7NG, ARRL, 225 Main St, Newington CT 06111. We would like to have the returned surveys by October 31st. You may copy the blank survey and distribute it to other amateurs, particularly to operators that may not be active in VHF/UHF contesting now. A summary of the results will be available in the future.

Previous: A Review of the ARRL Emergency Communications Level 1 Course

Next: "Good Amateur Practice" Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry